


Re(d)tail

by sharkily



Series: Retail [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Retail, Gen, I have plans for more, M/M, grimmons is endgame but this is just introductory, i made this to cope with my own job
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-19 13:37:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22311874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkily/pseuds/sharkily
Summary: He was running out of ways to explain the same thing. Frustration knit his brow as his poker face of fast friendly service slipped slightly. “Ma’am, we no longer sell this item, we can’t return it because it isn’t in our inventory anymore.” The woman gaped at him like a fish, like he’d just told her to go to hell (he wishes he could).“This is ridiculous, I have my receipt!” She pointed aggressively at the crumpled up receipt Simmons had managed to straighten out enough to read. She was right, she did have the receipt. But it was from three years ago. If they still sold the item, he could probably work his way around the system and do the return, but it's been discontinued for a year and a half.ORThe retail AU no one asked for.
Relationships: Dexter Grif & Dick Simmons
Series: Retail [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608424
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	Re(d)tail

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all, I thought this would be fun and lighthearted. A good way to distract myself from HW :) The store the reds work at is implied to be Target/Target like, I don't know if I'll refer to it as Target in the story though. I do have plans to incorporate the blue team if more is desired! There are SW spoilers ahead for ros, so if you care abt spoilers just skip the last 2 paragraphs or so

He was running out of ways to explain the same thing. Frustration knit his brow as his poker face of fast friendly service slipped slightly. “Ma’am, we no longer sell this item, we can’t return it because it isn’t in our inventory anymore.” The woman gaped at him like a fish, like he’d just told her to go to hell (he wishes he could). 

“This is ridiculous, I have my receipt!” She pointed aggressively at the crumpled up receipt Simmons had managed to straighten out enough to read. She was right, she did have the receipt. But it was from three years ago. If they still sold the item, he could probably work his way around the system and do the return, but it was discontinued a year and a half ago. 

“I understand that ma’am, but my machine won’t process it because not only has it fallen out of the window of our return policy, we just do not carry that item anymore. I’m sorry, but there isn’t anything I can do.” He pulled his eyebrows together in an attempt to appear sympathetic. He was not sympathetic. He wanted to take the receipt and rip it up into little pieces and throw it away and  _ not  _ think about this stupid transaction. She had a mixture of anger and shock pulling her sagging facial features, and her thin lips turned downwards in a pointed scowl. He knew it was coming before she even opened her mouth.

“I want to speak to your manager.” She spat, smugness quickly taking over for the anger. He inwardly rolled his eyes, nodded, and was about to call for Sarge over the walkie when he heard someone coming behind the service desk.

“That would be me, how can I help you?” Simmons suppressed a groan and turned to look at Grif, who was pretending to care about the customer’s issue by occasionally nodding his head while she ranted about Simmons’ god awful customer service skills.

“-And this asshole won’t give me my money back!” She finished, gesturing stiffly to Simmons, who at this point didn’t care about his poker face. He wasn’t  _ quite  _ glaring, just staring with slight malice at the woman’s cakey purple eyeshadow. If he had to guess, she was probably in her forties. It’s always people in their 40’s-60’s who expect him to bend over backwards to meet their needs. Ugh.

“I’m so sorry to hear that miss. I’ll be having a talk with Richard about his service, but I’m afraid this is outside of our return policy and abilities. But you might have some luck calling the manufacturer, the information should be on the box or the manual it came with.” Everyone has a customer service voice, but Grif’s sounds the weirdest. His words sound earnest and peppy, when his real voice is the direct opposite, apathetic and mocking. The woman just stared blankly ahead of her, probably trying to process the information that had been relayed to her for the  _ seventh  _ time. But it must have been the lucky way Grif phrased it because the woman just picked up the box, nodded at Grif, said a curt thank you, and left. But not before one more poisonous glare towards Simmons. As soon as she was out of earshot, Simmons pinched the bridge of his nose and gave Grif a withering look.

“You’re not my manager, let alone a manager.” He sighed. “That could get us in big trouble, you know that?” Simmons looked at him expectantly. 

“Dude she didn’t know that, and it totally worked. I was originally gonna pretend-fire you in front of her but that seemed like overkill.” Grif shrugged and smiled in that nonchalant way of his that made Simmons grit his teeth in frustration. Why couldn’t he take anything seriously? 

“What if Sarge happened to walk by? Or literally anyone else? Sometimes I can’t believe you, Grif.” He shook his head, as if to cleanse the entire situation. “Where are you supposed to be today anyway?” Simmons fumbled for the break sheet on the counter and squinted at the list to see who needed to be relieved. No one was due for break for another hour, but Donut was supposed to leave in five minutes. “Go hangout at self checkout until Donut leaves, then take over for him.” Grif was at self-check. Great. Now he was going to come over and bother Simmons every chance he got. And given how dead it had been all day, he had six hours of Grif talking about the new Star Wars movie ahead of him. 

“Oh hell yeah,” he walked off towards the wide isle where the self-check machines were currently unoccupied. “S’up Donut, I’m you in five minutes,” Grif was so loud, he didn’t doubt half the store could hear him. Simmons could see them make small talk over the next couple of minutes. Donut chuckled at something Grif said (that was probably dumb) and handed him his walkie.

“It’s all yours,” Donut was chipper as he headed towards the lockers. At least someone got to enjoy the rest of the day. 

“Have a good night, Donut!” Simmons waved as he walked past the desk.

“I’m sure I will! Have a good close guys!” And he was gone. Just as Simmons began organizing the reshop bins, he heard Grif leaned against the middle counter and tap his fingers rhythmically.

“So Rey being a Palpatine actually makes more sense after rewatching it for the third time. I noticed a lot more than I did the second time around, you just have to watch it more than once to understand it all.” 

“If you have to watch a movie more than once for it to be good, it’s not a good movie.” Simmons sighed.

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. Maybe this is the future of cinema, Simmons.”

Simmons got ready to tune out the next dumb thing to come out of his dumb mouth and turned around to continue sorting his bins.


End file.
